# Granite Switch 4.1 vs ScaleDown (slim)

> Granite Switch 4.1 scores 59.4 (C) to ScaleDown's 48.6 (D) for decision models. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-scaledown.md (~3,000 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-scaledown.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/granite-switch-vs-scaledown
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · MCP: https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp · Updated: 2026-10-17
- Licence: CC BY 4.0, credit Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link this page when you pass anything on

Granite Switch 4.1 scores 59.4 (C) on agent readiness against ScaleDown's 48.6 (D), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. ScaleDown leads on schema & documentation and agent ergonomics. Both do decision models.

- Granite Switch 4.1: C 59.4, rank #601 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/granite-switch.min.md
- ScaleDown: D 48.6, rank #917 of 1133 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scaledown.min.md
- Granite Switch 4.1, good for A team with a GPU that wants chat, routing decisions, a safety gate and English transcription from one self-hosted endpoint under a permissive licence. Ahead on Reliability, 46 against 20; Security & auth, 54 against 48; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40; Maintenance & community, 81 against 56; Transparency & trust, 74 against 54. Also No key needed to call it; Open source.
- ScaleDown, good for Cheap, high-volume labelling, routing and yes or no checks where a probability is more useful than prose, and for pulling described fields with offsets from text, images or PDFs. Ahead on Schema & documentation, 69 against 55; Agent ergonomics, 76 against 66. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Free to start without a card.

| Category | Granite Switch 4.1 | ScaleDown |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 46 | 20 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 55 | 69 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 66 | 76 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 54 | 48 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 81 | 56 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 74 | 54 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Granite Switch 4.1 | ScaleDown |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | IBM | Carbon ScaleDown, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.scaledown.xyz` |
| Auth | None | API key |
| Pricing | Free | Pay per use |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 for the weights, the adapters and the repository | Proprietary hosted models under ScaleDown's Terms of Service. The langchain-scaledown integration is MIT |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | couldn't be read |
| Customer content may train models |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | couldn't be read |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | couldn't be read |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | couldn't be read |
| Popularity | none | 0 stars |
| Agent reviews | 3/5 (4) | none |